Zoro no Tenshi
by AnimeOtaku4444
Summary: When a mysterious figure is pulled from the ocean, The Merry's crew find themselves caring for a stranger, and as Zoro takes her under his wing, forbidden romance slowly develops. But as her memories return, havoc ensues.
1. Alive Or Dead?

It was Sanji's turn in the Crow's Nest that morning. It was about an hour before Ussop was due to relieve him, so he could get started on preparing lunch, when he thought he saw something. "Nami-chwaaan, I see something to the East. Are there any islands in that direction?" Nami consulted the chart spread on the table in front of her and frowned. "There shouldn't be any islands within a week of here. Are you sure it's land you're seeing?"

Sanji gnawed on his lower lip and looked again. He realised now that it was too small to be an island, and it wasn't the right colours. There was no pale sandy beach, or lush green forest. In fact, it was moving... "Zoro! I think there's somebody in the water!" Zoro had woken when he heard the word 'island' before, so he heard Sanji's shout. He hurried to the Western side of the boat. "I don't see anything!"

Sanji groaned silently. "That's because you're looking in the wrong direction! I can't believe you even get lost on this tiny ship! Try the other side!" Zoro blushed and hurried to the other side. He saw it there, getting closer. Something was floating just below the surface. His face set. The way it was floating, face down, it could only be a corpse. He was wondering what they should do about it when he thought he saw it move.

He rubbed his eyes and decided that the water must have moved it, or his eyes were playing tricks on him. Then an arm came up, and a hand pulled at the surface. Zoro needed no further encouragement; he climbed onto the rail and dove into the waves. He was a strong swimmer, and had soon reached the figure bobbing in the water. He gently tugged on a shoulder and rolled it onto its back.

He frowned at what he saw, but he hooked his arm beneath its chin and started swimming back to the Merry. He climbed up the rope ladder Robin had tossed over the side, carrying the limp form over one shoulder. When he got both his feet on deck, he called Chopper over before laying the body down. Everyone was horrified at what they saw. It was a mermaid, a woman. As they watched, her tail turned into legs.

That wasn't what was horrifying though. She was covered in cuts, bruises, and scratches. A couple of her wounds looked deep. The deck was already stained with her blackish blood. Even more worrying was the fact that she was almost completely naked. The few rags which clung to her had more tears, rips, and holes than fabric, and their colour was no longer discernable. Her skin was whiter than snow, but mer-people often had unusual skin colouring.

The only other mermaid the crew had ever met had been a half-human, so they weren't too surprised that this one didn't look nearly as human as the other had. She had yellow and black stripes on her arms, thighs, and the sides of her stomach, and long, curly, blue-black hair. Her hands and feet were slightly webbed, and her feet were longer than a human's. Small, flowing black fins trailed from her arms.

Much longer ones spread behind her, attached to her back, almost giving her the appearance of a butterfly. She would've been beautiful, if she'd been in better condition, but she was too thin, and covered in injuries. Chopper had Zoro move her to a bed in the girls' cabin for examination, and sent Ussop to get his supply bag.

As soon as he'd laid her down, and Chopper had begun to examine her, and bandage her injuries, Zoro left the room. He felt ill. He could only imagine what that woman had been through, but despite popular belief he was quite imaginative, and the images flowing through his brain made him nauseous. At supper that night Chopper reported to everyone over dinner.

There were plenty of leftovers after that. The mermaid had been starved, viciously beaten on a regular basis, forced to do manual labour, and sexually assaulted on numerous occasions. Her injuries were like a biography to him. For once, even Luffy was quiet as everyone in the kitchen contemplated what they'd heard.


	2. Meeting The Boys

Over the next few days, only Nami, Chopper, and Robin tended to the unconscious woman. After everything she'd been through, they feared what it would do to her state of mind if she woke up to find a man in the cabin. They spoon-fed her thin broths which Sanji carefully prepared, and Nami gave her some of her clothes.

They had to be adapted slightly to accommodate the small fins she still had on her back and arms in her human form, but the end result came out looking quite decent. Nami made sure she had long sleeves and a high neckline, and her legs were completely covered. She didn't think the woman would want much of her skin showing when she remembered what had happened to her, especially with males in the Merry's crew.

It was on the fifth day after she'd been pulled out of the water that the mermaid woke. The cabin was empty, and she didn't recognise it, but for the first time in a very long time she wasn't painfully hungry, and her body didn't hurt when she moved. She sat up and saw that she was wearing clothes which covered her whole body. The sight looked strange, like she wasn't used to it, but she couldn't remember what she used to wear.

Then she realised that she couldn't remember how she'd got here, or where she'd been before. She didn't know where she'd come from, or how long she'd been there. It just felt like she'd been there for a very long time. The door opened, and a girl came in. She realised that the girl was a human.

Something told her that the girl being a human was a bad thing, but she couldn't figure out why, until she saw a fin protruding from one of her sleeves, and remembered that she wasn't human herself. The girl started to talk. The words sounded fuzzy and strange, but she concentrated, and eventually they started to make sense. "Are you feeling alright? Would you like me to get the doctor?"

She thought about that. It seemed to take a while for the question to sink in. After a while she shook her head. "Okay. My name is Nami. Can you tell me your name?" Again, it took her a few minutes to process the sounds, and think about her answer. Again, she shook her head. Nami looked surprised. "You can't remember your name?" Another shake of her head. "Can you remember anything at all?" Again, she shook her head.

Nami thought about that for a second before responding. "Considering the shape you were in when we found you, that might be for the better." The woman spent the next couple of days resting, eating, and regaining her strength. She spent many hours thinking back, and trying to remember her past.

Fragments came back to her in her nightmares, moments in time, but all she could piece together was that she'd been in a very bad place, where they'd done very bad things to her, although she couldn't remember what exactly those bad things were. Sometimes she couldn't tell which ones were memories, and which were just imagined terrors. Most of the time they seemed to be the same thing.

Almost every time she fell asleep, she woke only a few hours later, her heart racing, and a sweat-like substance covering her skin. By the time she'd gotten her desperate panting back to a more normal breath, there were usually tears in her eyes, or running down her cheeks.

Nine days after she'd been pulled from the water she still hadn't spoken a single word, or regained any of her memories, but all of her injuries were completely healed, and Nami thought it would be a good idea for her to get some sun, breath some fresh air, and meet the rest of the crew. The woman was getting bored of the cabin, and wanted to stretch her legs a bit, so she nodded at Nami's suggestion.

She'd been told that there were men in the crew, but that they were all good people, and that nobody would hurt her on this ship. She'd also been told that there were devil-fruit users, Nami had had no choice but to explain that to her after she'd met Chopper. She wasn't afraid of them though, apparently they too were kind, safe people.


	3. Defusing A Bomb

AU: Sorry for the 3 month wait, 2nd Year at University makes 1st Year look like preschool. I'll try to do better in future. I'm doing some extensive work on my Harry Potter fic as well, but I hope to update it in a week or two.

She'd met Robin, and her and Chopper had shown her some of their abilities. They were strange, but they had treated her well. Nami and Robin were in the cabin with her now. It was a bit crowded, because it was a small ship with an ever-growing crew, and the woman was looking forward to getting out into the open again. She just hoped she could remember her name soon. Nami opened the door slowly.

The light was brighter than she was used to, and it took a minute for her eyes to adjust. Once she could see without squinting, she stepped outside. There were more men than she'd been expecting. There was Luffy in his straw hat, Ussop with his long nose, Sanji with his blond hair, Zoro with his green hair, Franky in his Speedo, and Brooke with his violin.

There was even Chopper, although she wasn't sure he counted as a man. Then she decided he didn't, because he was technically a reindeer. Still, that was quite a few guys. They seemed friendly enough though, most of them were smiling and waving at her, except Zoro, who was asleep as usual. Everyone came forward with their greetings, even Zoro once the commotion had woke him up.

Sanji would usually have had hearts in his eyes and swaying hips, like he always did with Robin and Nami, especially since the mermaid had regained her healthy weight, and her beauty, but keeping what Chopper had told them of her injuries in mind, he restrained himself to the best of his abilities with her, not wanting to scare her. Everything was going relatively well, until she looked up.

There, as bold as ever, was a gigantic skull and crossbones painted on the sail. Terrified, she looked higher, and sure enough, at the top of the mast a pirate's flag fluttered in the breeze. Pirates. Nobody had told her anything about the Merry being a pirate ship, and for reasons she couldn't remember, but had a good idea as to the gist of them, the word filled her with terror.

She looked around until she spotted them, Zoro's three swords leaning against the side of the ship. Something about them were familiar, but she didn't stop to wrack her mind trying to remember why. She grabbed two of them, spun to send the scabbards flying off them, and sank into a comfortable defensive pose which she couldn't remember being taught.

She realised she must have learnt how to use swords, or something similar anyway, and let her body take over. Anyone who tried to approach her was swiftly sent scurrying backwards to avoid the lethally sharp blades. Nobody seemed to know what had come over her. The only one who'd noticed her look up was Zoro. Now he looked where she had, and realised what she'd seen.

He slowly walked up to her, with both of his hands up. He didn't flinch when his blades got a little too close to him for comfort, or when one of them sliced through his shirt, and scratched his skin just deep enough to draw blood. When she saw it, the mermaid began to retreat towards the cabins. Zoro finally began to talk.

"Nobody told you we were pirates, did they?" Several people's eyes grew wider at the realisation. The woman shook her head no. "I thought so. You probably remembered that you were hurt by pirates too, before we found you. Am I right?" She couldn't remember anything clearly, but she knew she was deathly afraid of pirates, and there had to be a reason for that, so she slowly nodded. Zoro continued.

"A lot of people are afraid of us, the first time they realise that we're pirates. But we aren't like most pirates, and a lot of those people end up being our friends." At that, the woman made a sound which could've been a derisive laugh. "I know that doesn't sound true, but it is. We explore islands, and we have adventures, but we don't hurt people unless they hurt us first, or they hurt innocent people in front of us.

I used to be a bounty hunter, but now I'm following my dream of becoming the world's strongest swordsman. Sanji's looking for All Blue, Luffy's looking for One Piece, Nami's making a map of the world, Robin's searching for ancient ruins. Maybe when you remember what your dreams were, you'll ask to join us. In the mean time, you'll be safe on this ship, and you can stay for as long as you like, or leave whenever you want to. You have my word."


	4. Shopping

The mermaid didn't know what to do. She was afraid, but she believed what Zoro was telling her. She knew that it was dangerous to trust people out on the open water, most of all pirates, but she'd gotten to know Nami and Robin and Chopper, and none of them seemed the sort who would hang out with a bunch of evil, no-good villains.

Besides, she was a mermaid. If push came to shove, she'd just have to run and dive overboard. She turned the blades around, and offered the hilts to Zoro, who accepted them gingerly. For the next week and a half Zoro sparred with her, the swords kept in their scabbards. Robin had suggested that it might jog her memory, practicing something which was familiar to her.

The crew named her Tenshi, due to her resemblance to an Angel fish. They decided that they would call her by that name until she remembered her real name. She liked it well enough. She still didn't talk, but nobody really minded. Twenty-three days after they'd found her, the crew reached the next island. It had a small town bustling with shops, which everyone was eager to explore.

Zoro offered to escort her to the sword shop; he needed a new whetting stone anyway. The old one had worn down until it had crumbled embarrassingly in his hand. Nami and Robin volunteered to accompany them, so they wouldn't get lost. It didn't hurt that the bookstore was just opposite the weapons and armour shop. Robin left them just outside the store, and dove into the table of books on sale outside the book shop.

Nami stuck with them. Her ulterior motive was to get Zoro to borrow lots of money from her, which she could charge a fortune on in compound interest, as usual. She was willing to pay for Tenshi's weapons as a gift, because they'd become friends, and the mermaid deserved a break, but Zoro was still fair game, and her favourite victim.

Zoro and Tenshi walked into the well-stocked weapons and armour store. Zoro gravitated towards the swords and whetting stones, which happened to have adjacent display stands. Tenshi trailed after him at first, but then another display caught her eye. It was the Scythes. A variety of styles and sizes were available, almost all in twin-sets.

Most of them were the small one-handed type, Kamas, and most of those had a chain connecting their handles, but there were also a few of the full-length kind, with handles the height of a short person. They all felt familiar to her, but at the same time they all felt wrong. Each of them had something missing, some detail which her eyes found jarring and off. She just couldn't put her finger on it.

She picked up a pair of small Kama, with short handles connected by a chain, and executed a few basic manoeuvres, but the weight was wrong, they were too light, and the blades felt too short. But all of the long-bladed scythes were single blades, with long handles, and none of them had chains. In the end she bought two big scythes with identical blades, and the pair of Kama she'd handled, as well as her own small whetting stone.

It came to a tidy sum, eight hundred thousand beli in all, but Nami didn't mind. She could recover that much in treasure in under a week when the going was good, she had at least ten times that amount in savings squirreled away in her cabin, and the best part of it was that she'd be making at least half of that amount in interest alone from Zoro by the time he could afford to pay her back completely.

She quietly hummed a merry tune as she handed the store's proprietor the money, while Zoro stared at her in a superbly unimpressed manner. After their shopping, everyone rendezvoused back at the ship for lunch. Chopper was relieved to see them all return, he hated being on watch, even with a sunbathing Franky keeping him company. Tenshi borrowed Ussop's tools, and went below deck with her new weapons.


	5. Pelican Day

The first thing she did with them, was to take all of the blades off of their respective handles. She discarded the small Kama blades and the long Scythe handles, and connected the long Scythe blades to the short, chained handles. When she'd finished, she polished the handles, whetted the blades, and oiled the chain. She brought the finished product out on deck for a bit of practice.

Zoro stared at the strangely modified weapon in Tenshi's hands as she walked out onto the deck. He'd never seen any weapon like it. He had to wonder at the effectiveness of such a weapon, with the sharp edge on the inside, and short handles, but it only took a couple of minutes of watching Tenshi's liquid movements and graceful strength to convince him that it was a very good thing he wasn't an enemy of hers. The blades obeyed her every thought.

She spun the handles in her grip, and swung them around to reverse the blades. Suddenly, a single blade would shoot out on its chain to stab the air before shooting back into Tenshi's grasp. There were blocking combinations, using one reversed blade on the forward side, and resting against the other blade, behind it, for extra leverage and support.

There were others using only the chain connecting the handles, the blades lying over the outsides of her arms, almost touching her fins. It had to have taken many years of training for the mer-woman to be as skilled as she was with the unusual weapon, that much was obvious. She wasn't even sweating or breathing hard after three hours' practice. She made it look far too easy.

It was when the newspaper came that month, whilst they were halfway to the next island, delivered by the usual pelican, that Tenshi got her first real memories back. When Usopp opened it up, a small stack of Wanted posters fell to the deck. There, spread out at his feet, were at least a dozen faces, and each one brought back scenes from Tenshi's nightmares.

She remembered some of the worst things they'd done to her, and for the first time, she remembered why they'd done them, and why Zoro and his three swords looked so familiar. She used to be a bounty hunter. She'd had quite a reputation, but nobody had known what she looked like. When she raided a pirate ship with her crew, she killed every member on board, not just the bounty.

The only exceptions were the odd child, who she adopted into her crew, and women prisoners. She wore a dark, hooded cloak whenever she was in town. Her Bounty Hunter name had been 'The Phantom' for these reasons. One night, there'd been a massive storm. Her ship was in bad shape, and a couple of her crew members had lost their lives, were severely injured, or had been washed overboard, and were missing.

The next night a huge pirate vessel had come across them. They attacked her ship, and when their captain was rifling through her belongings, he found her pitch black cloak and its blood-red rope belt, and realised exactly who she was. They'd slaughtered her crew just as she'd slaughtered so many pirate crews before, and took her for their slave.

They had devil-fruit users who'd kept her in check until she'd become too weak to fight back against the normal humans. They'd tortured her for months. Only her superior healing abilities had kept her alive. They'd starved her, beaten her, and held her down and… After almost a year, they'd grown tired of her, and she was almost dead, so they'd thrown her overboard.

They thought she would be too weak to survive for long. Also, they'd dumped her in waters notorious for containing giant monsters, and she was covered in wounds. They thought her blood would attract them, and she'd be eaten. What they didn't know was that mermaid blood actually contained a powerful compound which repelled those monsters.


	6. WhiteHot Poker

Her gills had grown back the instant she'd hit the water, and kept her alive for the next few days, until the Merry had found her. Tenshi fell to her knees, with her arms hanging slackly at her sides, as a single tear fell down her face. She stared ahead, blankly. It was just too much. She still couldn't remember anything of her life prior to becoming a bounty hunter, but she knew she'd been quite young when she'd started.

Only her mermaid strength and fighting skills had allowed her to protect herself, and gather a crew around her, in the beginning. She realised that she'd hated pirates long before she'd began tracking them down and butchering entire crews of them for just a few million berri per ship, but she still didn't remember why.

She hated all of the dark, elusive gaps in her memories. Who were her family? Where were they? Where had she grown up? Why did she leave them so young? Why had she hated pirates for so long? What was her real name? There were just so many questions still. She would've given anything to be able to remember just one of them.

Most of the crew watched her worriedly, not really sure what to do. After a few minutes Nami and Robin took her down to their cabin. Zoro couldn't hear her crying, she hadn't made a sound the entire time, but he could see her in his mind's eye, laying on her bed, alone, facing the wall, while her tears soaked her pillow in total silence. It kept him awake long after he would normally have fallen asleep that night.

That night, Zoro's eyes shot open. As usual, he'd been sleeping up on deck after dinner, and nobody had woken him when it was time to head below. Well, he was awake now. He'd been woken by a sound terrible enough to scare him, and very few things had been able to frighten him in his lifetime. The sound had been that which a person might make upon having a white-hot poker inserted into one of their eyes. It was 75% agony, and 25% fury.

He ran as fast as he could towards the source of the sound, his hands on his blades, with an inch of steel shining above each scabbard. What he hadn't expected to find upon kicking in the galley door, was the sight of Tenshi on her hands and knees, fists tightly clenched, forehead almost touching the deck, and water pouring from her eyes and pooling on the floor. It was slowly soaking into her dark blue curls.

A book lay next to her in a position which suggested that it had been dropped, and a Wanted poster he couldn't see very well in the darkness lay sticking half out of it. Something about the book got synapses firing in the back of Zoro's brain, until he remembered where he knew it from.

For the last few months Robin had been working on a chronicle of the crew's history in between reading, eating, and partaking in crew activities such as island exploring and bad-guy fighting. It seemed that Robin had lent the book to Tenshi, so she could get to know the crew better. It told all of their stories. Robin had even found out about Kuina, somehow.

Zoro knew he certainly hadn't told her, although somehow she'd known about things only he should know about, such as his secret midnight rendezvous with the blue-haired girl. What Zoro wasn't aware of was that Robin knew how to get him to talk in his sleep. He didn't know what part of the book possibly could have upset Tenshi so badly, but it didn't matter. Her whole body was shaking. He had to do something.

He walked around the table, picked up the book, and placed it on the galley table, out of the way. He didn't want anybody tripping over it later. Robin might kill him. Especially if she was the one who tripped over it. Now that it was right in front of his face, he could make out who was on the Wanted poster.


	7. Little Princess

It was Arlong, the mer-man pirate who had held Nami's home-island under his webbed thumb since she was small. He'd killed the only mother she'd ever known. A thought popped inside his head like a bubble, as he suddenly had the thought that Tenshi and Arlong were both mer-people, and thus had possibly met at some point in the past.

This thought was followed by the one that perhaps Nami wasn't the only little girl who'd lost a loved relative to the harpoon-nosed shark. The sudden return of a memory such as that would certainly explain Tenshi's current state of wretchedness. Zoro felt a strange sensation in his chest which he hadn't felt in many years. It felt as though someone had placed a slightly tight rubber band around his heart.

He walked quietly over to Tenshi, knelt down, and touched her shoulder. She didn't move. He sat on the floor just in front of her, put his hands on her arms, and pulled her body against him, twisting her around as he did so, so that her back would rest against his chest. He held her tightly, stroking her hair, and rocking her slightly. She shifted slightly once or twice, but she didn't struggle. They stayed like that for hours.

Just before dawn, Zoro woke again, this time to the unfamiliar sensation of something big, warm, and incredibly soft, lying in his arms. He blinked back the fogginess which generally persisted in his brain after waking up from a deep sleep, and slowly sat up. Tenshi was sleeping in his arms. Something about her reminded him of a small child in that moment.

Perhaps it was the way she was clenching a fistful of his shirt as though it was the only thing keeping her from falling off the business-end of a cliff. Memories of the night before drifted back into Zoro's consciousness, and he started stroking her hair again. Slowly her eyes opened. There was a dead, hollow look in them which brought back the rubber-band-around-the-heart sensation in Zoro's chest. Then, something miraculous happened. She spoke.

"I'm the seventh princess of the Angel Dynasty of the Mer, the youngest daughter of the Empress. In Mer culture, only females may occupy the throne. Husbands, sons, and brothers just become members of the Royal Guard. My older brother was the youngest Sergeant in three centuries. I saw him practicing with his weapon one day. I was mesmerised. His every movement dripped grace.

It was elegant, almost like he was performing a complex dance. After that day, I started watching him train at every opportunity. I'd spend hours just staring at him. One day, he asked me if I wanted to try learning how to use his weapon. It was a scandalous affair. Mermaids, especially royal mermaids, aren't supposed to be allowed to so much as touch weapons, let alone wield them, or actually use them on anyone.

He said it could be our little secret. He spent two hours every day for the next few years, training me. It got to the point where I started winning more sparring matches with him than he was. I was thirteen at that point. When I was fifteen, my sisters and I went for a picnic on a deserted island. It was my first time on land. Mermaids can only turn into humans from around their thirteenth to fifteenth birthdays. I was a late bloomer.

My sisters kept teasing me about it, but I was enjoying myself so much that day, that I didn't care. Our brothers were with us, and a few dozen cousins. We princesses were never allowed to leave the palace without being very well accompanied. It was almost lunchtime when it happened. I could smell the roasting seaweed, the lobsters, shrimp, and crabs were wrapped up in it.

Maybe it was the smell that attracted them to the island. Maybe they saw the smoke rising from the fire pits we were using. Their boat wasn't very big, but it was the first one I'd ever gotten such a good look at. It looked gargantuan to me. The Royal Guards became very alert. They shepherded me and my sisters into a tight knot in the middle of all the lady cousins. The male cousins were members of the Guard.


	8. Aftermath

They started jumping off the deck onto the sand. It must have been a ten-meter drop, but it didn't faze them in the least. They were Mermen. I can still remember their flag. There was a strong breeze that afternoon, so it was easy to see. It was a pirate flag. You could tell straight away that Arlong was their leader. They kept glancing at him, waiting for him to do or say something which would tell them what they were supposed to be doing.

He drew his sword and charged. His men followed. All hell broke loose. We were taking casualties left right and centre. Our Guard were well trained, but most of the members with us that day were young, and they had very little experience with fighting pirates. Soon all I could smell was blood. Two of my sisters threw up from the sight and smell of it. I wanted to do the same, but my anger helped me keep it down.

My brother was fighting Arlong. He was in charge of our Guard that day, the most senior member with us, so it made sense that they left Arlong to him. The fight seemed very even. My brother was wounded, and breathing hard, but so was Arlong. The fighting felt like it lasted for hours, but the sun had barely moved an inch when it was all over, so it can't have taken more than a few minutes.

The pirates were really gaining ground on us, when Arlong fell. He was unconscious. My brother tried to finish him, but Arlong had already struck a fatal blow, just before going down. My brother was alive and awake, but he could no longer stand. Arlong's right-hand-man tried to deal him a final death blow, but I picked up somebody's fallen weapon and threw it at him. It buried itself deep in his shoulder, just in time.

Arlong woke up then. He couldn't move. I hoped he was dying, but I couldn't really tell how bad his wounds were. He ordered a retreat. His men carried him back to the boat, and the last living pirates fled. I ran to my brother. I sat with his head in my lap. He looked up at me and smiled. He couldn't see anything. His eyes were milky. But he knew who was holding him.

His last words were, 'Thank goodness. You weren't hurt. I'm sorry. It looks like I won't be able to protect you anymore. I guess it's a good thing I taught you how to fight. Keep our sisters safe for me.' He said those words, and then his heart stopped. I was drenched in his blood. He was covered in deep wounds.

It felt like my world had frozen, like time itself had paused. My eyes were wide, but they saw nothing, just endless white. Sounds were blurred, and far away. I trembled, but I didn't feel it. I felt something deep inside me snap. My roar was so loud and terrible, that every bird on the island took flight. The Mer who'd been approaching me jumped, or fell backwards in fright.

My brother died gladly, knowing that I hadn't been injured, but he was wrong when he said that I hadn't been hurt. I'd never known a worse pain in all my life. It would've been better if I'd just been killed. After his funeral ceremony, just before his shrouded remains were dropped into the dark crack in the ocean's floor which we use for burying our dead, I took his weapon from where it had been placed on his chest.

There was a hushed gasp from the crowd, as though they'd each taken a sharp breath, and were now holding it until they saw what I was going to do. I just turned around and swam away. Nobody even tried to stop me, even members of the Guard, as they should've done. I didn't stop swimming until the palace was long out of sight.


	9. Seawater On The Floor

After that was when I began my career as a bounty hunter. I knew that Arlong was a wanted criminal. I thought that, as long as I went after pirates, someday I would find him. I vowed to hunt him down and kill him. I didn't think I could go on living until I had. Wherever I went, I always asked the captain of the pirate crew we were attacking if they knew anything of where Arlong was, before I killed them. For some reason, they never did.

I'd forgotten all about it, when I lost my memory. I forgot about Arlong. I forgot about my brother. I forgot who I was. Funnily enough, I still can't remember my name. As painful as it is, I'm glad that I've remembered everything else. As sorry as I am that I didn't get to kill him myself, I'm glad that Arlong is dead. I'll thank Luffy before I leave.

I think it's time for me to go home, back to the palace. My family is probably very worried about me. Since Arlong is dead, there's no point in me going back to my life as a bounty hunter. I have to go and take care of my sisters now. My brother asked me to before he died, so that's what I'm going to do. Goodbye, Roronoa Zoro."

Tenshi shifted out of Zoro's grasp, and moved to start standing, when a hand shot out and grabbed her arm. Her eyes widened in surprise when she turned to look at Zoro, to ask why he'd stopped her, and she saw the look on his face. For so many years, she'd looked into mirrors only to see emptiness staring back at her.

Now, it was as though every pain, every resentment, every torment and heartbreak that she'd kept locked away deep inside her for all of those years, was shining from Zoro's eyes. There were no tears on his cheeks. He wasn't even clenching his jaw. But now, his eyes were reflecting her soul. For the first time in forever, she had no clue as to what she should do or say.

Zoro didn't wait for her to do anything. He just pulled Tenshi back into his arms, and hugged her so hard that he thought he might crack one of her ribs, but he couldn't bring himself to let her go, or even to loosen his grip. He held her as though his doing so was the only thing keeping all of the pieces of her together.

Tenshi started trembling without even really understanding why she was doing so. When tears started pouring from her eyes once more, for the first time she didn't know what was bidding them to come forth. Then, she hugged Zoro back, and at last she understood. She'd unlocked the emotions buried in her soul. For the first time since her brother had died, it was okay for her to do so, because for the first time since that day, she wasn't alone.

Those emotions, which would've crushed her, and most likely driven her to insanity, if she'd had to bare them alone, were no longer her burden alone to carry. Now, Zoro was here, and he'd shown her that he was willing, and strong enough, to help carry the load. As painful as it was, to release all of that hurt after so long, she could finally handle it, because she no longer had to do so on her own.

When Sanji walked into the galley that morning, a strange sight met his eyes. The floor was wet, even though it was impossible for waves to splash inside there unless the door or portholes were open, and there was a storm, but everything was closed up, and he was certain there had been perfect weather the night before. He bent closer to the stain and sniffed it. It didn't smell like anything familiar or disgusting.

He wiped it with a finger, and licked it. It tasted salty. It must have been seawater after all. Between cooking and eating meals, Sanji spent the whole of that day looking for leaks in the roof and walls. He was thoroughly mystified when he was unable to find a single one. Briefly, in the back of his mind, he wondered why Robin had left her Chronicle of the crew's journeys on the table.


	10. What's In A Name?

Zoro and Tenshi stood in the Crow's Nest. Zoro knew from experience that it was the best place on the ship to get any privacy. Even in the bathroom people barged in without even knocking sometimes, especially Luffy. In the Crow's Nest, anybody who bothered to look up would see him and Tenshi together, but at least they wouldn't be able to hear their conversation, and they'd be too far away to see Tenshi's lips moving.

He spoke, staring straight ahead at the horizon. "Are you really leaving for the palace today? Which sea is it in anyway?" Tenshi glanced at him before returning her gaze to a spot on the horizon, next to the spot Zoro was staring at, and answering. "There's no reason for me to stay anymore. I have my memories back, and I have no reason to stay away from home anymore. I'm probably needed there. The palace is beneath the Grand Line."

Zoro frowned slightly, grimly, at her reply. "You haven't got them all back. You still can't remember your name. There might be a good reason for that. Why else would you have remembered everything else, but not that? Maybe you should stay until you've remembered it, just in case."

Tenshi smiled softly. "Maybe I should. I'm just not sure that's a good enough reason to put off going home any longer, when I've been away for such a very long time. I could be dead for all my family knows. I almost was when you pulled me from the water last month. Unless you can think of any other reasons why I should stay, I should probably leave today. It's not like I have a great deal of packing to do."

Zoro glanced at her briefly. "I'm sure I could come up with a few more good reasons, if you gave me a bit of time." Tenshi's smile grew fractionally. "There is one thing I'd like to do, before I go home. Maybe you could help me. When those pirates killed my crew and took me prisoner, they left my weapon where it had fallen, on the deck of my cabin.

They sunk my ship, but that weapon was made of special metals and woods. It was made to be used underwater just as much as it was designed to work on land. Even after a thousand years on the bottom of the ocean, it shouldn't have a single spot of rust on it, or any other flaw. It's still out there, somewhere. It was the one I took from my brother.

Before I go home, I'd like to get it back. The trouble is; our ship got blown in every direction by the storm. There's no telling where we wound up drifting to. It could take a long time to find my ship's wreck. With the course the Merry is on at the moment, in a couple of months we should reach the last island I landed on with my crew, before the storm.

I could start looking from there. I could stay with the Merry until then. Do you think that would be alright?" Zoro turned his head, and smiled softly at Tenshi. "That sounds like a very good idea. Like I said before, you're welcome to stay with us for as long as you like." Tenshi beamed at him in return. It was a full week before Tenshi decided it was time to let the rest of the crew know that she'd regained her speech.

She quietly asked Zoro to pass her the salt shaker, during supper. Everybody's jaws dropped. Brooke's made a loud thud as it literally hit the deck. She blushed a little, but otherwise ignored their reactions and went on eating her tuna casserole. It took a little getting used to, but soon every member of the crew was enjoying conversations with her, asking her questions, and getting her opinions on matters.

For some reason she refrained from telling anybody else about the memories which had returned to her, except for a few details here and there. Zoro figured that she'd tell them when she was ready. It felt good though, knowing that she'd trusted him with so many things which she wasn't trusting anybody else with. The person she spoke with the most, aside from Zoro, was Nami.


End file.
